The Amazing Race - revisited

The title of this blog post is double-edged. We have arrived home from our jaunt across 5 time zones and two seasons - from dry season heat of 90 degrees and sun, to Michigan cold of 15 degrees and snow. I will continue blogging about Africa for a while longer, as we just didn't have the technology to keep up my posting during our 7 week adventure.

So this post is about another Amazing Race - the television program. A few weeks before our departure the show paid a visit to Ghana, and its capital city of Accra. When the students found out we were going on a day trip to the city, they came up with a "must see" list, and the coffin maker topped that list.

In Ghana, coffin creation is an art. You can order a coffin to fit the personality of the deceased, including planning your own final event. There are not factories in Ghana to create fine art, so you are getting hand-crafted goods wherever you go; far cry from our U.S. assembly lines. Hand carved out of trees chosen just for that purpose, there is little waste and a great deal of creative license.

We set off to find "the" coffin maker, as visited on the Amazing Race, and found the shop on Beach Road in Teshie, between Tema and Accra. You have to look carefully, as shops are clustered on top of each other, and in front and back. But the students knew what they were looking for. Take a look!

Someone must have called ahead and known Daryl's preference:

And then there was my personal favorite - what do you think? Made to order?

Comments

S. Etole said…

These are really something ... I'd go with the camera!

December 13, 2010 at 7:12 PM

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